Some Sort of Christmas (10th in the Vicksburg series)
by PollyVictorian
Summary: The 83rd Indiana spends Christmas on the move.


"My dear Grandfather,

Thank you for your letter which I received yesterday. I am in good health and hope this finds you the same.

I am sure you will understand, sir, when I tell you that, having given my pledge to serve in the Union Army for the duration of the war, I would consider it the worst kind of dishonor to go back on that pledge. To remain in the army seems to me the only course I can honorably pursue. My own choice would be to stay with my present regiment. I have a high respect for the commanding officers of the regiment and have also come to have a sincere regard for the enlisted soldiers amongst whom I find myself. However, should you think it best that I transfer to another unit for the remainder of my term of service, I will comply with your wishes.

I am sorry that I will not be with you for Christmas and New Year. Please convey my compliments of the season to our friends in Boston and to all in our household. Above all, Grandfather, please accept my best wishes for your health and happiness and believe me always to be,

Your affectionate grandson,  
>Corporal Scott Lancer."<p>

LLLLLLLLLLLLLL

The letter had been mailed before the 83rd Indiana Infantry left the camp in Memphis and boarded the transport ships which were to take them down the Mississippi. Now, as Scott came up onto the deck of the steamboat _Inverness_ at sun-up on Christmas Eve, their fourth day on the river, he reflected that his Christmas greetings were unlikely to reach Boston in time for the holiday.

It had been a hard letter to write – not because he had nothing to say, but because so little could be said to his grandfather. Harlan Garrett would have no interest in, indeed would not want to hear about, army routine and the comradeship Scott shared with his fellow soldiers. The things around which Scott's life now centred would mean nothing to his grandfather.

Hardest of all had been to agree to his grandfather's proposal of a transfer to another regiment. The 83rd Indiana was where his loyalty lay – he felt a pride in his regiment and a sense of belonging that went deeper than anything he'd known before. Nonetheless, he knew he owed a duty and obedience to his grandfather. Acceding to his grandfather's wishes, so long as they did not conflict with his duty to his country, was the right thing to do.

Anyhow, it would take time, Scott thought, trying to cheer himself. Time for his letter to reach Boston, time for his grandfather to contact his acquaintances in the War Office, time for the wheels of military bureaucracy to grind around and a transfer to be put into effect. And for a certainty, no changes would be taking place while the regiment was on the move, headed south to join General Grant's troops in the action against Vicksburg.

The steamboat's crew were moving about the deck and Scott felt the engines start into life as the _Inverness_ pulled away from the bank where it had moored overnight. Travel at night was considered too risky, with the chance of Confederate troops hidden amongst the trees that lined the riverbank, ready to take advantage of concealing darkness, but not a moment of daylight was wasted.

"Morning, Mas' Scott," a colored crewman greeted him.  
>"Good morning, Nathan. Looks like clear weather. Think we'll have a good run today?"<br>"Hard to say, Mas' Scott. Weather's good but Cap'n says we're turning up the Yazoo this morning. Never can tell what the passage is like along that river." The crewman headed aft as Dan Cassidy came up beside Scott.  
>"You're up and about early, Scott."<br>"Yes, it's a little too cramped for comfort down below, once you wake up."  
>"I'm just glad we've got sheltered quarters on this boat, instead of sleeping on deck like on the last one," Dan said.<br>"That's the advantage of being on a freighter, instead of a passenger boat," Scott told him.  
>"You seem to know quite a bit about riverboats, not to mention being acquainted with the crew. How did you come to know Nathan, anyhow?"<br>"I met him on my first trip to St Louis. His mother works for a friend of my grandfather's, a Mr Galbraith. I became friends with Nathan on a visit there four years ago. He and I got up to a some mischief together." Scott grinned at happy memories.  
>"And got your backsides paddled together, I suppose," Dan surmised, grinning in his turn.<br>"We most certainly did. Aunt Jerusha – that's Nathan's mother – she didn't stand for any nonsense, believe me."  
>"Was she a slave?"<br>Scott frowned. "I don't know. I never thought to ask. She's the Galbraiths' housekeeper and we young ones always had to show her proper respect."  
>"Was it in St Louis that you learned so much about riverboats?" asked Dan.<br>"Yes. Mr Galbraith is a part-owner of the firm the _Inverness_ belongs to. That's how Nathan came to be working on her."  
>Dan laughed. "You mean there's a friend of the ship's owner sleeping in the hold? That'll make a good story for you to tell him after the war."<br>"It will indeed," Scott agreed. He decided against telling Dan that he himself was also a part-owner of the shipping firm and the story would be even better than Dan thought.

"Steam's up, Mas' Scott!" the shout came from Nathan, and Scott and Dan headed for the spot where excess water issued from the vessel's boiler. As they filled their quart-pots, Dan said,  
>"We're obliged to your friend Nathan for putting us onto this, anyway. Having hot coffee has made all the difference to the men."<br>"It certainly has," Scott agreed. "Cold sowbelly and hardtack just step into the realm of edible so long as there's plenty of coffee to wash them down with."

"Yazoo River: does that name mean anything?" Tice McRae put the question to Scott and Dan as the steamboat chugged along a waterway whose banks looked more like marsh than dry land.  
>"It means 'River of Death' so I've been told," Scott answered his friend.<br>"The River of Death – nice place to spend Christmas." Tice's voice was gloomy.  
>"Not something to mention when we're writing home, that's for sure," said Dan. "Did you boys get your letters to your folks mailed before we left camp?"<br>"Yes," replied Scott. "I sent Christmas wishes to everyone back in Boston but I doubt my grandfather will have gotten the letter in time."  
>"I hope my folks don't get my letters until after Christmas," said Tice. Scott knew which letters he meant – the ones breaking the news of his cousin's death. It would be a grim Christmas for Cal's parents if by some ill luck Tice's letter reached them quickly.<p>

"Alligator Bend up ahead, gen'lemen." Nathan came up to the soldiers. "If you want a sight o' them ugly critters, there's the best place for them that I know of."  
>"Where?" "Let's see!" "I always wanted to see one of those things." The soldiers crowded to the rail, peering ahead eagerly. Scott was amongst them, as curious as the rest. He'd never been far enough south to see an alligator before. The boat rounded a curve in the river and the soldiers gasped and whistled as more than a dozen of the enormous reptiles came into view, lolling in the shallows along the riverbank.<p>

"Reckon we could shoot one?" Jed Lewis took aim with his handgun and fired. The alligator took no notice.  
>"Hey, did you see that? The bullet just bounced off its hide!"<br>"It's no good shooting them critters any ol' where," Nathan advised him. "Just behind the foreleg is where you got to shoot a 'gator. And them little bitty bullets is no use. It takes a musket ball to get through a 'gator's hide. "  
>"Let's try that, then." Joe Lewis raised his musket, took careful aim and fired. The alligator lurched and flipped over.<br>"Got him!" Joe was exultant.  
>"My turn," said Jed. His musket ball sent a second alligator rolling. The other soldiers lined up along the rail joined in the shooting, whooping and yelling every time one of the giant creatures was hit.<br>"What's going on here?" Sergeant Stevenson's voice pierced through the racket.  
>"Just a little target practice, Sergeant." Dan, who had been firing along with the rest, tried the excuse.<br>"All that shooting is likely to tempt any Rebel guerrillas hiding amongst those trees to take a few pot-shots themselves. And they won't be shooting at alligators, they'll be aiming at the line of sitting ducks with empty muskets leaning over the rail. I thought you had more sense, Sergeant Cassidy, and you too, Corporal Lancer."  
>"I'm sorry, sir." Scott was surprised at how bad the orderly sergeant's disapproval made him feel. The soldiers dispersed, some looking sheepish, others sullen.<br>"I thought we'd get some fun when we joined up." Scott heard the grumble. He wasn't surprised when he realized it came from one of the Lewis boys.

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Christmas morning gave no prospect of a day any different to the past five spent on the riverboat. After a breakfast of sowbelly and hardtack and with Christmas dinner of the same to look forward to, Scott was again on deck when Dan came up to him with a book in his hand.  
>"Scott, I want you to lend me a hand with something. I got Sarah to send me this." He held up the book and Scott saw the title: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. "Have you read it?"<br>"No," Scott answered, "at least, I started to read it once but didn't finish it." He looked again at the book, the memory rushing back.

It had been two years ago, when he was at boarding school. His grandfather was spending the winter abroad. Harlan Garrett had arranged for Scott to spend Christmas with the Dennisons but Julie and Perry had come down with scarlet fever and it was considered too dangerous for Scott to visit, so he had stayed at school over the vacation. On Christmas Day he had slipped away from the few other boys staying in the school. He missed his grandfather and had something else adding to his unhappiness, as well. A few months before, the other boys' talk of their fathers had become too much for him and he had written to his own father, Murdoch Lancer. He had waited for an answer – and waited – and waited. By Christmas, he was facing the fact that an answer might never come. Lonely and miserable, he had gone into the deserted classroom to try to lose himself in a book the English master had recommended to the boys – Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol.'

He had enjoyed it at the start. The tale caught his imagination and he followed along as the Ghost of Christmas Past led Scrooge back to his childhood, back to his school, back to a young boy sitting alone with a book in a schoolroom on Christmas Day – and Scott found himself reading his own story. Very much his own story, as he came to the passage revealing that Ebenezer was alone in school because his father didn't want him. But then came the difference: Ebenezer's father relented and his sister came to take him home. That was where Scott stopped reading. He flung the book into a corner of the schoolroom and stood with clenched fists, fighting with himself. He wouldn't cry. He was fifteen, too old to cry over a dream that he knew would never come true.

Scott's mind came back to the present, as Dan explained what he was planning.  
>"I thought we could read this to the men – make some sort of Christmas out of the day. You and I can take turns in the reading. What do you think?"<br>"I think it's a great idea, Dan," said Scott. "The men will love it – even the ones who won't admit to it."  
>"Good. I'll go drag them away from their poker."<p>

Scott found his fists involuntarily clenching once more as Dan's fine reading voice approached that unforgotten passage. It wouldn't affect him the same way now though, surely. He'd been a schoolboy back then; now he was a man, an officer in the Union Army, serving his country. He wasn't going to make a fool of himself; he wouldn't.

In the end it didn't matter because when the words hit, he wasn't alone. More than one soldier's face was twisted and Dan's own voice shook as he read the words: "To bring you home, home, home! … Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever." And none of the soldiers longing for home noticed Corporal Lancer's face as Sergeant Cassidy reached the line: "Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home's like Heaven!"

Yes, he got through it. He had known he would. It had been two years now, after all. He had had time to become reconciled to the fact that the dream would never come true. His father would never send for him. There would never be a girl come for him in a carriage to take him to his father's home.

"… God bless us, every one." The light was fading as Scott read the final words of the story. Dan had managed to stretch it out over the full length of the winter day; he had called a lengthy pause at dinner time that had got the men hovering around, anxious not to miss anything when the reading was resumed. Now, as Scott closed the book, the talk started. Every man had something to say about the story and if Scott knew his comrades, the talking it over would last as long as, or longer than, the reading.

"Corporal Lancer! Corporal McRae!" Sergeant Stevenson's call was as strident as usual. "Over here! I've got a job for you two."  
>Scott and Tice followed the orderly sergeant to where he had several boxes piled. He opened them to reveal slabs of fruit cake.<br>"This is from Mrs Balfour," he said. "She added it to the stores before we left camp; said she wanted her boys to have some sort of Christmas treat. Cut it up into slices." He handed the corporals a couple of knives. "You've got experience as company cooks."  
>"I wonder if we'll ever live that down," muttered Tice.<br>"Probably not," Scott said, "but this time, I don't mind."

After a supper made special by Mrs Balfour's gift, the men of Company L stayed on deck, braving the cold of the December night for a while before going to their cramped sleeping quarters below. Scott had slipped a piece of the fruit cake to Nathan. It seemed only right to share something of Christmas with the friend from his old life. Now as he sat with Tice and Dan, Sergeant Stevenson came over and joined the three friends.

"It has been a sort of a Christmas, after all," said Tice, "thanks to Mrs Balfour and Dan."  
>"I've been eighteen years in the army and whenever we've had good officers, we've had some sort of Christmas, somehow," said Sergeant Stevenson. "It's the officers who can make or break the men's morale, like the boss in that story. You boys remember that when you move up the ranks."<br>"If we move up the ranks," said Scott.  
>"You will, Corporal. You're good soldiers, all three of you."<p>

Someone began singing 'It Came Upon The Midnight Clear' and as once before, Scott was startled by the magnificent baritone as Sergeant Stevenson joined in the song. Scott, Tice and Dan added their own voices to the carol. It was not much of a Christmas, compared to the celebrations and elaborate gifts of his Boston social circle, but Scott did not regret missing the festivities back East. This year, the troop transport _Inverness_ was where he belonged. And he had received a gift that now he valued more than all the extravagant presents he would have been given in Boston.

In the eyes of his commanding officer, he was a good soldier.


End file.
